Golden: 1819.

[ofthefamily]

An old face. Calmer, older, and yet all the same unchanged.

At least he's not running for his life, now. And he knows where he is.

For Carlisle Cullen, this is always a good start.

Comments

[ofthefamily]

Maybe Edward forgot.

I am happy with you. So I manage.

[themidnightson]

Edward's brain stutters through a number of reactions, all of them simultaneously hitting at once.

Carlisle does not seem un-happy now. With his life. With everything. And he did smile like that the first time he spotted Edward from the door. And some part of him aches with an unfettered possessive pleasure at the idea. But if Carlisle is happier here and now, with him, than he ever is beyond the door, then is he doing him a disservice for the life he keeps having to return to. And it's seconds, only, each time.

Seconds.

And Carlisle.....manages.




This place. This strange room. Crossed between their times.
Uncertain, and rare for it. "I'm not certain what to say to that."

[ofthefamily]

Don't say anything if you do not wish to, Edward.

Every time I see you helps me. Even if it just a picture in my mind.

[themidnightson]

There are several -- several -- things he almost says.
Perhaps even that he should say. But what he does is simply this.


Edward's eyelids flicked closer to closed, amber eyes never leaving Carlisle's face, his head tilting until his temple and his ever bright hair were against the wing of his chair. "You are much too far away."

Physically. Generally. Temporally. (Honestly?)

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle stands, and how did he get here, where Edward asks for him? It's surreal.

Carlisle moves to the arm of Edward's chair expectantly. "What would you have of me?"

[themidnightson]

Edward pivoted his head, so he could still be looking at Carlisle. Never away.
His lips tugged just barely. "How complicated is it to say, everything?"

[ofthefamily]

Very.

(And is he so very blind in the future that he can no longer see such as Edward by his own side? When Carlisle lands a hand in Edward's hair, his fingers curl possessively at this rather than the movement itself.)

"Je pourrais rester ici," Carlisle offers, a mumble and a request as much as a deal to be made. "If you'd like."

[themidnightson]

His eyes close at the tension across his hair, the tone of the voice so close, and the weight of what can not be missed in Carlisle's thoughts. The multifaceted edges of it.

"Suis-je n'ai jamais trouvé, alors," is soft, the edges of his eyes tightening. "Et vous êtes abandonnés."

He promised. He promised never again. Never.

He leans into the chair wing, but not even slightly from Carlisle's touch, when his eyes open, looking at the suit near him more than the face. How much is it admit that he's gone through all these thoughts.

"Or does nothing change, because the time outside each door never moves, and then a lifetime here still takes nothing from there."

[ofthefamily]

"I do not sound like him. And you do not exist yet in my world."

You need to think about yourself here. Please.

[themidnightson]

It will never be easy. Carlisle made his life.
He made his own choices. (That promise.)

And what Carlisle, this one here, asks, now. Still the same and not yet. Maybe not ever. How does one figure out whether one is dealing with an alternate universe or potential undoing their own existence.

And that request. That request smacks of so many things.
So many things that have not happened to him.
Centuries yet found or survived through.


Edward leaned into the hand above him, trying to keep his voice toward some level of wry, "You will realize at some point I am tragically accomplished, and incompetent, at that."

It fails though, on the follow through. "Especially with you."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle bends at the knee; it brings his face closer to Edward's now, even if Carlisle's hand doesn't leave him.

"What if this is the chance? To just go? Do what you want - I want.

"I don't want it to be another ten years before I see you again."

[themidnightson]

More than anything it hurts. That same face. The exact same face. Every piece and part of it. The same voice, low in his ears, and those thoughts. That anyone could ask that of him. Ever.It tears at everything he created in his stupidity.

He knows what it did once. He'll never forget that.

"He needs me."

Even if his tone leaves the second word inflected far more heavily toward a completely different point and word. Which probably, none of his thoughts or words are helped, when he doesn't stop himself from reaching out and brushing his fingertips across Carlisle's cheek bone.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle swallows through the nodding of his head.

He gets it. He does.

Carlisle as he is can manage. Edward's Carlisle - no, the Carlisle from Edward's time - can't.

It's the only answer that makes Carlisle function with Edward's answer.

[themidnightson]

He can't succeed here. He even already knows the flavor of the pain that flashes through him, the one that isn't his. His fingers tensed, going perfectly still. Four remote dots of contact.

None of this is fair. It hasn't been since he started arriving from the 1700's. Still isn't. Not that anything has been 'fair' to Edward in over seventy years in this regard.

He can't even ask what he did to the universe at large.
That answer is beyond self evident, too.
Even if it's not the words that come.

He lets his gaze drop. "I tried to tell you. I left once."

I tried to forget you once.

[ofthefamily]

"I know."

And that's really all there is.

But Carlisle doesn't move.

Edward asked him to be here.

(Carlisle will take what he can get.)

[themidnightson]

"Don't say that." It wants to be an order.
Anything but the plaintive note in it.

[ofthefamily]

Confusion again.

"What? 'I know'? You would prefer some other term?"

[themidnightson]

"Not that." Edward can look chagrin even at semi-stricken. "The other--" doesn't finish, when his eyes shut and he briefly shakes his head. It's still words to him, still an idea. An acceptance of the unacceptable in a place it shouldn't be.


"That's never how -- things won't end up that way for you."

[ofthefamily]

You don't know that. Even being from one possible future, you don't know that.




Slowly, "I don't want to fight with you about it."

[themidnightson]

"You exist." He's not quite sure if it's an apology or explanation.
They both exist. He can't say yes, and he doesn't have it in him to say no.


Edward turned his head and looked up. He didn't take a breath, but his facial expression shifted. Calmer. Smoother lines. The skin at the edges of his eyes relaxes. Perhaps, everything perfectly shifts towards a picturesque vision of normal, except his eyes.

"Choose a different topic? Something else nice from the newest decade?"

[ofthefamily]

It takes Carlisle a while. He rearranges himself on the floor, even, sitting next to the chair as though everything were completely normal.

"I'm learning the harpsichord."

[themidnightson]

His mouth tugged faintly.

"You did mention an interest once. How is that going?"

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle wrinkles his nose, looking out and letting his gaze fall somewhere on the toe of Edward's shoe.

"I think I prefer the lectures."

[themidnightson]

The first two urges, the one that nearly arrest his mouth and his hand from him, are tightly slammed down. At least it is not something even remotely new.


"You should definitely choose near a school then."

[ofthefamily]

"Or a medical teaching facility."